Bring crickets to dinner tables
A local cricket farm is making the idea of cricket flour normal in the city that keeps things weird.
Words by Mallory Lehenbauer Photos Courtesy of Aspire
Just ten minutes from the airport, Aspire and Austin brand, Exo, are on a mission to bring crickets to dinner tables in an effort to create a more sustainable planet.
“The scope of the problem is pretty significant,” Founder and CEO of Aspire Food Group, Mohammed Ashour says regarding the world’s food sustainability problem. “If you think about it, there are well over a billion people living on [less than] $2 a day who do not have access to safe, affordable, nutritious food. Beyond that, our current food production system is placing extraordinary stress on the planet,” he laments.
Mohammed is so passionate about his work that in 2013, he and his team won the Hult Prize, one of the most prestigious business awards, for their efforts addressing this very issue. “We have about 7.5 billion people today,” he urges and goes on to explain. “In order to feed them, we need to use tremendous amounts of land, water, and energy. If everyone in the world ate a Western diet, we would need two planet Earths just to feed everybody.”
The Aspire team recognizes that it’s not just enough to concentrate on hunger issues; focusing on making food production systems more efficient is equally important. They bring a degree of innovative, cutting edge approaches to addressing some of the most pressing challenges in the world. “We are doing that by recruiting some of the best talent in East Austin, producing great products, and having Austin become essentially a hub for a lot of this innovation,” explains Mohammed.
In fact, six years after the Hult Prize, East Austin now houses the leading commercial cricket farm in the world. Exo, the recently acquired consumer-facing brand of Aspire Food Group, is putting crickets in protein bars. “Exo is trying to lead the charge and educate people on why they should eat crickets, the benefits both in terms of nutrition and in terms of sustainability,” Mohammed says.
He and his team want to continue building a community around food sustainability and innovation in Austin as they launch retail products at H-E-B. The goal is to “generate fantastic products that people can actually enjoy and that fit into [their] lifestyles.”
Contact:
6231 E Stassney Lane
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@aspirefoodgroup
